CGIAR has submitted several innovation sprints through the Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate (AIM for Climate / AIM4C), a joint initiative by the United States and the United Arab Emirates. More details can be found below:
Climate-resilient soil fertility management by smallholders in Africa, Asia, and Latin America
Addressing both climate challenges and the current fertilizer supply crisis, this sprint will enable and empower small-scale producers in target regions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America to achieve effective and efficient nitrogen fertilizer management over the next four years (2022-2025). By tailoring validated fertility management practices to their specific conditions, smallholders will optimize productivity, enhance climate resilience, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. With a planned budget of approximately $89 million until the end of 2025.
Fast tracking climate solutions from CGIAR genebank collections
A new $40M initiative led by the CGIAR, in partnership with the Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will unlock key climate-resilient traits from CGIAR’s vast global genebank collections. This Innovation Sprint will expand the utilization of high-value genetic diversity to address current and emerging climate challenges faced by millions of smallholder farmers worldwide. The initiative welcomes additional partners from all sectors to scale this critical work.
Livestock, climate and system resilience
A new $24 million initiative led by the OneCGIAR, Livestock, Climate and System Resilience (LCSR) is designed to meet the “double burden” challenge that climate change poses for livestock production. It addresses both adaptation and mitigation priorities for livestock production systems in Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Mali, Senegal, Guatemala, and Colombia, delivering strategic, well-targeted action research that provides answers to the tough choices and tradeoffs, as well as ‘investable’ solutions that influence policy and attract climate finance.
Innovative and impact oriented delivery of climate-resilient bean varieties by African research networks
The Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) and its partners will empower seed system actors to deliver climate-resilient bean varieties more efficiently to smallholder farmers in Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. Mobilizing $20 million toward a demand-led and research-guide ‘bean corridor’ approach, this sprint innovation will accelerate bundling and scaling genetic and institutional innovations to improve bean productivity for three million farmers, two million of them accessing remunerative markets and 60% being women.
Digital resources for scaling up climate-informed agroecological transitions
The Agroecological TRANSITIONS’ Inclusive Digital Tools project (ATDT) aims to leverage $25 million to develop digital solutions for smallholder farmers to scale up agroecological practices. The program will expand access of low-cost digital technical advisories and performance assessment tools to 100K farmers in ten countries and five value chains in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This will enable farmer co-creation and rapid development of site-appropriate climate change resilience and mitigation measures based on agroecological principles.
Integrated desert farming innovation platform
The Integrated Desert Farming Innovation Platform will support the Arabian Peninsula and MENA region in boosting employment and incomes and ensuring food, nutrition, and water security for their populations as they face the impacts of climate change through integrating and fast-tracking innovative and circular desert farming technologies and business models. The project aims to leverage an increased level of investment from $7 million over a five-year period to $20 million by the end of 2025.
Gender and climate action
Through this sprint, we aim to strengthen the capacity of low-income countries to design policies and interventions with a gender and climate lens, and we plan to work with national agricultural research systems to generate evidence on what works as gender-responsive climate solutions are rolled out and scaled. CGIAR is inviting partners to join us in developing this innovation sprint on gender and climate action ahead of COP28. We are particularly seeking partners who are committed to investing in the three focal areas listed above and who are dedicated to furthering gender equality and women’s empowerment through climate action.If you and your organization are interested in collaborating, please get in touch using this form. Submissions are due by September 15, 2023.